What weight of sugar do you need to feed a typical colony.

[rolande]

In the past I made regular inspections of randomly selected colonies right through the winter (over several years) - I mentioned this many times on the sbai forum at the time. I can't remember my bees being broodless in october, in fact it was quite the opposite with the influence of the ivy in full flower. The only time period I can remember as being invariably broodless was during the first couple of weeks of January. OK, different location and bees but I can only relay what I saw so I'll agree with Dani on this.

 

[oliver90owner]

Actually feeding till they stop is bad advice. Queens are still laying winter bees. If you stuff the brood box with stores you will have fewer bees for winter

If there is a good sized brood nest, they will stop when the other frames are filled. They may, or may not need topping up late in the season as the brood nest shrinks. Observation of factors pertaining to feeding are always required (weather, forage, space, etc).

If over-wintering on a single deep box, it is important to fill it by the time the bees start to cluster. One reason (of many) why I have used extra-deeps for about twenty years….

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

most of the winter bees will be in the cells by now and some will have emerged.

Not necessarily, so a bit of a sweeping statement with no regard for local variances, in my area many colonies have a brood break from late August until about now - it's from now on that winter bees will be laid.

 

[John McC]

I have 13 hives and ordered 13 10 Kg bags of sugar for them, thats 10 Kg for each hive. I have been feeding for 2 weeks now and they are more or less finished taking down syrup. I have one full bag left. Some hives have taken more than others. I hefted each before and after feeding and am happy they have enough to last till spring. All my colonies are single broods.